Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1092: Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage, Part 1: Preston Sprinkle

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

I recently wrote a book titled Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? 21 Conversations From a Historically Christian Perspective, which releases on Aug 1, 20223, but you can preorder on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Does-Bible-Support-Same-Sex-Marriage/dp/0830785671/ref=zg_bs_271630011_sccl_1/147-3145573-9069658?psc=1 In this first of a two part series, I talk about why I wrote the book, how it's different from my previous book People to Be Loved, and I give an oveview of the first two chapters (or Foudnations): 1) How to Have a Profitable Conversation, and 2) The Historically Christian View of Marriage. 

Does the Bible support same-sex marriage? This is a very volatile question, and it's one that I address in a forthcoming book titled, Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? 21 Conversations from a Historically Christian View. What I want to do in this podcast episode is give a quick overview of the book, explain why I wrote it, talk about the first two foundational chapters of the book. And then in the next episode, we're going to get into some of the specific arguments for same-sex marriage and offer a response to some of the top ones that I've received. Okay, so why did I write this book? I have been, as many of you know, engaging the LGBTQ conversation for about a decade now. I've written a few books on the topic and done a lot of speaking at churches and conferences and different venues on the topic. And naturally,

churches and conferences and different venues on the topic. And naturally, whenever I speak, a lot of questions come up. And one of the things that I absolutely love, and I almost require it when I go speak places, I love the Q&A times, question and answer. Whereas I prefer Q&R, question and response. I can't promise you that I'm going to give kind of some black and white answer to all the questions that will answer them perfectly, but I will respond to people's questions and in almost every venue that I speak at. I always say, one of the things I really want to see after my talk is I wanna have a Q&A.

So I wanna hear what people are, I wanna hear what people are hearing. I wanna hear the pushbacks. I wanna respond to those pushbacks. I wanna offer clarifications. And I wanna learn from hard questions that maybe I don't have an answer to at that moment. So over the last decade or so, I've sort of compiled a mental list of all of the kind of top arguments for same-sex marriage. So when I go, I give a talk. I typically lay out what I think is a historically Christian view of marriage. And then oftentimes I'll focus more on pastoral

questions related to same-sex sexuality or gender dysphoria or trans identities in the church. Again, naturally, many questions arise that are offered in response to something I said or something maybe I've written about in the past. And so this book is kind of a compilation of my response to the top 21 arguments for same-sex marriage, theological, biblical, and even relational arguments that often come up. So that's why I wrote the book. People ask me, how is this book different than your previous book, People to be Loved? There is some overlap. I would say this book is kind of a follow-up to People to be Loved. People to be Loved is more of a holistic... How would I describe people?

It's my journey into the conversation, both my theological journey and my relational journey. And so it weaves together stories and how you know, the Bible on the topic. And, um, and I do respond to some of the pushbacks at that time, but it doesn't offer kind of a comprehensive, like, you know, response to all of the affirming pushbacks. So, um, this book does the Bible support same sex marriage is, is sort of a follow-up. It's kind of like all the questions, all the dust that got kicked up with people to be loved. This book kind of follows up and responds to some of that dust, if you will. But it does focus primarily on the theological, biblical, and relational arguments that are offered for same-sex marriage. I do focus specifically on sexuality. I don't deal with

gender, gender identities, the transgender conversation in this new book. So I do talk about LGB people. I don't address trans people. I do use the acronym maybe on a few occasions, LGBTQ, when I am actually talking about all LGBTQ type identities. But I do focus specifically on questions around same-sex marriage and same-sex sexuality in this new book. So here's how the book is laid out. The first chapter, I call it Foundation One, I talk about how we should even go about having a fruitful conversation. And I included this chapter first for a reason. I really think that this shapes the tone of the entire book. And in fact, I mean, I honestly was maybe most excited

about this chapter because this is something that I've been thinking through for years, but I've never really worked out in my own writing. I write a lot of books on this, and I'll go through the chapter in a few minutes. But I really wanted to begin the book by talking about how it is we should even go about having these conversations. Because I think one of the biggest problems in this topic slash debate slash conversation is that people, I think, begin on the wrong foot. They think if they can just pound somebody with intellectual arguments, they will force them to believe the right thing, meaning the thing that they believe.

And so I see this all the time, especially social media has often exacerbated that kind of posture and it seems like things are getting more feisty and polarized. And I just find this to be utterly unhelpful for the conversation and even unhelpful if part of your motivation, wherever you're coming from, if part of your motivation is I want to convince this other person to believe like I do. And here I'm speaking, whether you're coming from a more traditional perspective or a more progressive perspective, if that's your goal, then I think

this chapter will be helpful for you. Because I think oftentimes when people make that their sole goal, I need this person to agree with what I believe. I think they go about that kind of conversation in a wrong way, at least in a way that's very ineffective. So that's the first chapter. I call it foundation one, how to have a fruitful conversation. The second chapter, I call it foundation two, it's titled The Historically Christian View of Marriage. Here I take, it's probably the longest chapter. It is the longest chapter in the book. I spend several pages laying out what is, to the best of my understanding, what is the historically Christian view of marriage as it pertains to the possibility of same-sex marriage. And I offer five reasons

why I believe that the best reading of scripture is that marriage is between one man and one woman, so that I lay out really clearly kind of what it is affirming arguments, meaning arguments that affirm same-sex marriage, like what is the position they're actually arguing against? And this is another problem I've seen in the conversation. I think sometimes people don't really have a really clear or robust understanding of what the historically Christian view of marriage even is. And then sometimes people find themselves trying to defend so-called traditional marriage or historically Christian view of marriage against these arguments when they don't even have a great understanding of what that, what view it is they're even defending or some assumptions that go into that view.

So that's the second chapter. I really want to lay out clearly and thoroughly, although, you know, I have to keep it somewhat concise. You know, what is the historically Christian view of marriage? Okay. And then I spend the next 21 chapters, or I call them conversations, interacting with and responding to what I have found to be the top 21 arguments that are made to affirm same-sex marriage. And the chapters are relatively short. One of the things I wanted this book to be is very accessible and readable. Some of the arguments are very complex, very scholarly. And I kind of point out which ones are going to be the heaviest, you know, up front. Some of them are pretty, you know, mainstream or

like, you know, well known or familiar, kind of easy to understand, but some of them are quite complex. But my overall goal is I wanted a book that's relatively short, accessible, where you don't have to comb through some, you know, 300 word academic book to find, you know, a response to an argument your friend just offered you. So, so that's what the book is all about. Let's jump into this first foundation. So what I want to do is I just want to sum up kind of what I'm trying to say in each of these chapters. So yeah, the first foundation, how to have a fruitful conversation. Here, I'm primarily drawing on fairly recent psychologists like Jonathan Haidt, Adam Grant, Daniel Kahneman. And there's several others. I would say, when I say recent, I mean, in the last like 10, 15 years that have been written

that talk about the nature of belief, or even in the case of Adam Grant, you know, how do people change their mind? What does that psychological process look like? And all of these writers that I'm drawing on are all secular writers. They're not talking about same-sex sexuality. They're not talking about Christianity or faith or anything, but there's so many riches in these resources that are so helpful, I found, in any kind of pastoral ministry or any kind of conversation around contentious issues. So this chapter would really apply to debating politics over Thanksgiving meal, goodness, debating issues surrounding economics or climate change or whatever. Pick your contentious issue. And I think most humans go about dialoguing around those contentious

issues very poorly. And so what I try to do in this opening chapter is summarize kind of some of the things I've learned about the nature of belief from some of these psychologists. Yeah, Jonathan Haidt is, I mean, most of you probably know who he is. I talk about him pretty much in almost every podcast. His book, The Righteous Mind, I've considered maybe one of the top five most important pastoral books I've ever read, written by a Jewish atheist. So he's not talking about pastoral ministry, okay? But the implications of this book are so important for pastoral ministry or any kind of Christian leadership or any kind of leadership, just understanding, well, the subtitle of the book is Why Good People Disagree on Politics and Religion. Understanding why somebody might hold passionately to a viewpoint you find utterly terrible or despicable or harmful or whatever. I think understanding why they might hold to that belief is so important if you're trying to help

them to reconsider that belief. So one of the illustrations that Haidt gives in that book, and I think he actually mentioned this in a previous work of his, is the elephant and the rider. And you picture a small little human being on top of this huge elephant. And that's the illustration Haidt gives to illustrate the point that the elephant represents our, what he calls our intuition. Maybe just think our kind of gut feelings, our, maybe you could even, you know, our emotional, kind of the emotional side of our brain. And the rider represents kind of our prefrontal cortex, our rational reasoning, our intellectual

side, the side that builds rational analytical arguments. Now, his whole point of that is, It builds rational analytical arguments. Now, his whole point of that is that elephant is going to go where it wants to go. Your intuition is going to believe what it wants to believe. And unfortunately, you might think, our rational thinking, the part of the brain that kind of constructs logical arguments, represents kind of a small portion of that puzzle. Maybe 10% of our approach to various issues. It represents a small little rider at the top of the elephant who's trying to kind of steer it in a certain direction. But that elephant, if it sees something that it wants to go after, it's really going to go after that. So I think understanding that is so important.

And I think it's utterly true. And many other psychologists have, you know, without using that exact illustration, have pointed this out. I don't think it's really debated much anymore. And it should help us to understand that if somebody is holding on to a viewpoint and it's pretty passionate, for instance, let's just stir the pot here a little bit. If somebody over your next Thanksgiving meal is saying why Christians should vote for Donald Trump or Christians should vote for Joe Biden or whoever, you know, that if you just try to pound them with logical, rational arguments for why they shouldn't, why they're wrong, that is going to have very little effect on challenging their thinking. You need to appeal to their elephant. You need to understand their intuition, why, some more holistic reasons why they might hold to

certain viewpoints. It's not that they simply, you know, very, you know, calmly and coolly, you know, weighed all the logical arguments for and against this candidate or that candidate and says, okay, based on adding up all the facts, this candidate has more factual reasons to vote for them than this other candidate. Like it's not that it doesn't work that way. There's so many other things that go into why somebody believes what they do. It goes for all of us, goes for me, goes for you. So that if we're going to have a profitable conversation,

I think we need to understand the more holistic reasons why somebody might hold to a certain viewpoint. He even, is it Jonathan Haidt or is it, this might've been, no, I think it was either Adam Grant or, no, this is, yeah. Height compares our prefrontal cortex, I believe, to like a press secretary. Okay. And our intuitions, our elephant is, you know, the president of our beliefs. Well, the press secretary is going to do whatever it takes to defend the viewpoint of the president, right?

You never see the press secretary receive a hard question from a journalist in the room and say, you know what? That's a good point. Yeah, I think you're probably right there. Yeah, our president is really out to lunch. He's probably wrong. That just doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. So his illustration is that the way belief works, our prefrontal cortex, our rational reasoning is constantly kind of creating or finding reasons to justify a previously held committed belief. If you try to convince the

press secretary of something, it's just not going to be that profitable rather than trying to maybe convince the president to believe something. You convince the president and then the press secretary will follow. You convince the intuition and the rational reasoning will follow. Yeah. So I draw on another great book other than Height's book is Adam Grant's book called Think Again. And this book is all about on how and why people change their beliefs. It's a fascinating book, brilliant book. Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow is a different kind of book, but it touches on some of the similar things. He's a Nobel Prize winner, but it does kind of talk about the nature of belief as well.

Much larger book, much harder to read, but very worth it. Adam Grant's book is very easy to read, shorter. Jonathan Haidt's book, I would say, is in between those two books. So here's what I say early on in this first chapter. My intention in this book is not to arm you with arguments so you can go pummel someone with your viewpoint and destroy theirs in the process. While I do give intellectual responses to intellectual arguments, I'm also wanting to embody a kind of posture that I think is most conducive for having a fruitful conversation. So with that in mind, here are a few principles that I lay down in this first chapter. Number one, be willing to rethink your

point of view. You're like, really? Is this okay? Look, super difficult. I mean, the first one to say, this is a daily struggle for anybody, but I think it's incredibly important. And for this reason, if you're not willing to rethink your viewpoint, what in the world makes you think that the other person is going to be willing to rethink their viewpoint? So again, if you're in a conversation where you feel like I want this person to consider what I'm trying to say, if you want them to actually consider the veracity of what your, or the viewpoint you're offering, then you need to be willing to rethink yours. If you're asking them to rethink theirs, that to me is just, I mean, once you think about it, it's kind of like,

kind of sounds like a no brainer. So yeah, the second point, and some of these are kind of these points, these principles overlap a bit. Secondly, be a genuinely curious person. We should be genuinely curious about the other person and their viewpoint if we expect them to be curious about ours. Now, to qualify, being curious doesn't mean they are correct, doesn't mean that they even have a logical coherent argument for their viewpoint. It just means that we all should demonstrate genuine curiosity in the other person as a person, why the other person holds to this viewpoint and the viewpoint itself. We should be genuinely curious to know what that is. Why would they hold this? And not why would you hold this viewpoint,

but why do you hold this viewpoint? Like Show genuine curiosity. If anything, if anything, it can be incredibly disarming. And again, if deep down you're like, I still want them to believe me, okay. I want people to believe me because I think my viewpoints are true. Otherwise, I wouldn't hold them. We all should be honest with that. But if we want somebody to actually consider our viewpoints, we should be curious about theirs. And perhaps that curiosity can be contagious or at least influential that if you demonstrate curiosity in their viewpoint, yes, even who they want you to vote for, even if you find that candidate to be utterly despicable and horrible, if you demonstrate curiosity and why they hold to that viewpoint, there's a better

chance that they will cultivate curiosity toward your viewpoint. Thirdly, be a good listener. Be a good, a genuine listener. Okay. So Adam Grant says, when we try to convince people to think again, our first instinct is usually to start talking. Here's 15 reasons why you should believe. Okay. That's our impulse. Yet the most effective way, this is still Adam Grant, yet the most effective way to help others open their minds is often to listen. I've known this to be true. I found this to be true anecdotally over the years. Often when I speak on this topic, I mean, I often talk about the power of listening. I mean, it really does have a very powerful effect on having more profitable conversations around polarizing issues. And it's actually not that hard to do.

For me, I find giving profound advice, that's hard to do. That takes a ton of wisdom and experience and intelligence and all these things that it doesn't come easy. But simply listening, anybody can do that. My dog does that. My dog listens to me. He doesn't obey me half the time, but he listens. He looks at me, especially if I have a stick of pepperoni in my hands. Yeah. So I found this to be so true that listening is disarming. Listening shows that you're being genuine. Listening shows that you're being genuine. Listening shows that you're actually trying to understand before you're trying to refute. And that's a saying I have in the book, you know, understand before you refute. If you try to refute before you actually understand what the other person is trying to say, it's going to have a negative effect on the conversation. So be a good listener.

Number four, ask good, honest questions. Not interrogating questions, not cornering questions. The second someone feels threatened or defensive, like you're backing them into some kind of rhetorical corner just to win an argument, then the profitable conversation is done. And the hope of them actually considering your viewpoint is now that door has been closed because you've backed them into a corner and now they feel defensive and nobody, including you, likes to feel that way. So what I say in the book, oh, so one of the things that Adam Grant talks about, I don't know if he's, I don't think he's coined this, but he's the first one I, he's the first person I got it from.

But now I've seen other people use this. But instead of trying to straw man another person's argument, we all know what that is, right? Like you kind of like represent the worst, you kind of present the argument you're trying to counter. And you, you know, you present that argument in kind of the worst possible light. You create this man made a straw and then you push over the straw man. You're like, see, I destroyed your argument. Like, well, you created the worst version of my argument. You haven't actually tried to understand what the argument is. So what Adam Grant says, instead of straw manning the other person's point of view, try steel manning the other person's point of view. And I apologize

for the gender specific language. Typically I like to use the other person's point of view. And I apologize for the gender specific language. Typically, I like to use the term person or persons or people instead of man or women. Okay, my attempt at, you know, being politically correct. But in this case, I think straw man is kind of still the phrase. So I don't mean straw male. Okay, I just mean straw man in terms of mankind. Okay. Anyway, instead of straw manning, we should steel man the other person's argument. Try to get inside the argument. Try to almost get so close to where you're actually almost convincing yourself of the argument. Represent the other argument in the best possible light.

And then can you still show why that argument still is not the superior argument? If you can do that, you're going to have a much better chance at helping the person consider your viewpoint. But if all you do is strawman the other argument, it's going to have a reverse effect. They're not going to trust what you have to say. So when you go to make your argument, people are going to be like, wait a minute. I don't sense a good faith conversation. I don't think you're actually trying to search for the truth here you're just trying to represent my view in the worst possible light

so what makes me think I'm going to trust you to represent your view well so most people this is a quote from Adam Grant most people immediately start with a straw man poking holes in the weakest version of the other side's case. Instead of this, take a steel man approach where you try your best to understand and accurately represent the strongest part of their argument. And asking people questions can motivate them to rethink their conclusions.

So, yeah, so all that to say, ask good, honest questions so that you can best understand and represent the other person's argument. Fifth, find some point of agreement. Find some point of agreement. And this, okay, so these seven points that I'm going to give you, there's seven total, they're going to get progressively challenging here, okay? So this one's starting to get like, well, I don't know if this is really hard to do. Well, yes, it's incredibly hard to do. If you feel like you have the correct viewpoint and the other person is wrong, it could feel weak. It could feel like you don't actually have a strong case if you find some point of agreement. So it does kind of go, it feels a

little counterintuitive. But again, it's been psychologically proven. Anecdotally, I found it to be very true in the conversations I've had across differences that when you find something you could agree with and what the other person's saying, it lets their guard down. It shows that you're after the truth, not just after winning an argument. It shows that you're engaging in a good faith conversation, that you're willing to change your view or correct your view or augment your view if your view is faced with superior truth and errors in your view are pointed out. So you can, and here's the thing, you can find points of agreement. It doesn't mean you agree with their viewpoint. It doesn't even agree, mean you agree with the argument as a whole. But, and as I show this throughout the

book, you know, there are many things in aspects of affirming arguments. And I'm like, that's a good point. I agree with that. That's a great point. Actually, this point has forced me to go back and change something about my viewpoint. You can do that without buying into the entire argument that you feel is wrong or you're trying to disagree with. And this is something I do throughout the book. I'll jump ahead here. In the 21 responses I give to the 21 affirming arguments I interact with, there's three sections. I'll come back to this in the next episode too. But there's three sections in those short chapters. Number one, I summarize the argument. Number two, I find points of agreement.

So in every single argument that I interact with, I try to find something that I'm like, Oh, here's, here's the point that I agree with, with this argument. And some there's, in some cases there's lots of points of agreements and other, in other cases there's, there's maybe of points of agreements. In other cases, there's maybe fewer, but I still want to work like, is there something here that I can find value in? Find points of agreements. Number six, understand the power of belonging. And this has to do with what Jonathan Haidt calls our hive switch or our hive mind as in, you know, beehives,

bees interacting with each other and a beehive. We are all tribalistic. We are all groupish people. We have communities that we belong to that shape our beliefs, whether we like to admit it or not. And I think it's important to understand that if you were to actually convince somebody that your viewpoint is more correct than theirs, what would that do to their community? And this goes to both sides of this theological disagreement. And by the way, all these points that I'm talking about, this would equally apply to whether you're coming from a progressive or affirming perspective or coming from a conservative traditional perspective, whatever term you like to use to describe your perspective. So for instance, if you're, say, an affirming gay Christian and you're trying to convince your conservative parents to change

their viewpoint, you do have to ask the question, if they did actually come out as affirming, what would that do to their community? Would they have to change churches? Would they have to kind of go in the closet in the church they're at? What would that do to their friends, their family, their relationships? And again, if the change is toward the truth, then yeah, they should be able to make those sacrifices. That's something we should all consider, but at least have a more holistic understanding of what changing this individual person's mind would entail for their life. And this is just, I think, just good to be aware of as we approach the conversation. We're not simply trying to change the intellectual viewpoint of an individual.

In many cases, especially in this conversation, what we are actually asking is many times a change in community. That's a hard sell. And I even give an illustration here, this time towards a conservative Christian parent trying to convince their lesbian daughter that the affirming viewpoint is incorrect. And I ask a bunch of questions like, okay, well, if they actually did believe you, what would that entail? Would they have to leave their community? Would they not be welcome in their community anymore? Would they be welcome in your community? Whatever church you belong to and your lesbian daughter, say, all of a sudden

changes her viewpoint, how would she be treated at your community? Would she have the same robust, rich, vibrant, committed community in your environment than they did in the environment that you're basically asking them to leave. Put bluntly, is your church, does your church Christian conservative environment demonstrate as robust sense of community that maybe their LGBTQ community is demonstrating? And here, well, that's a whole other conversation. I think sometimes the church can maybe learn some things from the LGBTQ community. Okay, last point. Don't, and this is really counterintuitive,

but I, again, this is one of those things like I've learned anecdotally over the years. It was so good to see, especially Adam Grant point this out. Don't be overly confident, okay? Adam Grant says, communicating your beliefs with some uncertainty signals confident humility, invites curiosity, and leads to a more nuanced discussion.

I feel like this is so true. Given that our beliefs are often held largely by intuition, not just us examining all the intellectual arguments and weighing it like a scientist, weighing the two beakers with the chemicals. That's a terrible illustration. It doesn't make sense. But we're not just cool, rational creatures just weighing the facts. That's just not how belief works as much as we like to think it is. So given the fact that we have a lot of intuition that goes into why we believe what we believe, I think it's important, extra important to have a lot of humility in our beliefs to demonstrate even uncertainty. Instead of saying, you know, this is truth and you're wrong and I'm right. Say, you know, according to what I've

researched so far, here is the best reading of scripture, you know, but at least give the impression. Well, not just giving the impression to them, but to yourself. Like you should cultivate the kind of posture to where, but if I come across certain things that would correct my viewpoint, augment it, maybe change it, I would be willing to do that. Because I am committed to embracing the truth, not simply defending my viewpoint at all costs. So, um, and I, I can't say how important this is for those of you out there who are my age or older. I'm 47. So I'm a Gen Xer. So let me just speak to you, Gen Xers and boomers and who's older than boomers, traditionalists or elders or whatever they call them. Um, this, this comes very, they call them. This is very counterintuitive for us because we grew up with MacArthur and Driscoll and Piper and people that just, the louder they proclaim the truth, the more it felt convincing to us. I loved, I loved

hard-hitting sermons that I remember in Bible college, we'd walk out of chapel and say, oh, man, that dude ripped me a new one. That was so good. And we're like so prone. Maybe it's because we have daddy issues or whatever. But I mean, we were so prone to like the louder they yell, the more we were convinced of, you know, that what they were saying is correct. That doesn't work on Gen Z and younger millennials. doesn't work on Gen Z and younger millennials. So for those of us who are, again, Gen Xers, maybe boomers, and we're having these conversations with people in the Gen Z world or young millennials or kids or their kids or whatever, we have to really consider that

the way they receive or consider a viewpoint is different than the way we did. Humility, admitting some doubt, admitting that you don't have it all figured out, not being overly confident in your viewpoint. That actually creates a context where your viewpoint is more likely to be considered than less likely. And again, I live in both worlds. I've got Gen Z kids. I do a lot of work with younger millennials in Gen Z. And I also, I am a Gen Xer and I think like a boomer half the time. And so I get kind of the way I receive truth and what sounds convincing to me. But then I listen to the younger generation, especially.

And these are almost like, it's almost like cross-cultural ministry. So if you're my age or older and you feel like you're, you're being weak-kneed or, you know, soft on sin, if you demonstrate any kind of uncertainty or not, you're not being overly confident, I just, please, yeah, at least consider that sometimes that overconfidence can work against your viewpoint actually being considered. Confidence can work against your viewpoint actually being considered. This episode is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. Okay, so almost every single healthy person I know has been to counseling or seen a therapist. We all need to talk to someone and Faithful Counseling can help.

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forward slash T-I-T-R and get the professional faith-based counseling that you deserve. Right now, they've got a special offer for our listeners. You can get 10% off your first month at faithfulcounseling.com forward slash T-I-T-R. Thanks again to Faithful Counseling for sponsoring this episode. Does the Bible support same-sex marriage? That's a question that many people are wrestling with today. And there's, you know, people who hold passionately to different answers to this question. Now, most dialogues about same-sex marriage, they end with divisiveness and confusion instead of clarity and a better understanding of the other person's position and even a better understanding of your own position. position. This is why I wrote a book titled, Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? 21 Conversations from a Historically Christian Perspective, which comes out in August this

summer. So what I do in this book is I first talk about how Christians should even go about having, you know, a profitable conversation about contentious issues. I really want us to cultivate a better posture and how we even go about defending our points of view or trying to refute others. I then lay out a biblical theological case for the historically Christian view of marriage. And then for the rest of the book, I take what I see as the top 21 arguments for same-sex marriage. And I respond to each one in a way that's both thoughtful and thorough. Some of these arguments are, you know, since some people are born gay, then God must allow for same-sex marriage. Or, you know, the word homosexual

was only recently added to the Bible. Or the traditional view of marriage is harmful to gay and lesbian people. And many other arguments that I wrestle with in this book, does the Bible support same-sex marriage? So if you're looking for a theologically precise and nuanced approach to these arguments, one that doesn't, you know, strawman the other view to make it look bad,

then I would encourage you to please check out my book, Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? You can order it now on Amazon or wherever books are sold. So one of the pushbacks I might get from all this is that this is just secular psychobabble. You know, real Christians need to be bold and courageous. We should just preach the truth with conviction and, you know, people are offended. Oh,

well don't let the door hit you on the way out. Um, this just seems like you're trying to soften the truth and make it more palatable. So just so to be clear, that is not at all what I'm trying to do. Um, soften the truth and make it more palatable being seeker sensitive or,

you know, bait and switch. None of that is what I'm doing. I am simply trying to understand the nature of belief so that we can have a more profitable conversation. And my ultimate goal is I want people to receive the truth. And I think learning lessons from some of these psychological truths can actually help people consider the actual truth. So my ultimate motivation is because I want – in a sense, it's almost like I am being even more bold and courageous by being sensitive to the way belief actually works. Plus, this isn't just – okay, so some of you are like, well, I keep drawing on all these psychologists. Well, we see writers of the New Testament, especially the Apostle Paul, take advantage of the rhetorical devices available to him in his day.

Okay, he didn't have access to Adam Grant, Jonathan Haidt, and others. I don't want to say that the New Testament does everything I'm saying to do, but we do see Paul, especially in books like Philemon or letters like Philemon. But we do see Paul, especially in books like Philemon or letters like Philemon. Philemon is notorious for Paul approaching Philemon, trying to convince Philemon of a certain viewpoint. But he takes a very different approach than he does in, for instance, maybe Galatians. Galatians uses a different approach. First and second Corinthians, Paul taps into some rhetorical devices of the first century. Again, not to tiptoe around the truth, but to help the Corinthians to consider the truth. So, yeah, again, I think that the New Testament gives us biblical license to consider certain rhetorical devices to help people come to create the right context for somebody to actually consider the truth.

And Jesus did the same thing with asking all his questions and getting people to think rather than just simply declaring the truth and demanding that people embrace it. Okay, so I want to briefly survey the second foundation. This is foundation number two in the book. It's called the Historically Christian View of Marriage. So again, I think this is super important. Rather than just simply jumping into all the affirming arguments, I want to lay out what is the historically Christian viewpoint that I'm in a sense that I believe and that I am working from. Yeah, I lay out five kind of

components or maybe reasons why I hold to the historically Christian viewpoint so that the rest of the book is me wrestling with responses to that viewpoint, the viewpoint that I laid out, rather than assuming that, you know, the responses are even responding to a viewpoint that I actually hold. So five reasons. Number one, sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is. This is, for me, the most important theological assertion or question. You can frame it as a question. Is sex difference an intrinsic part of what marriage is? In terms of the theological debate, this is the most important point of disagreement, even if some people don't realize it. And I think that that's

unfortunately the case in some books that I've read, material I've interacted with. Oftentimes people jump into the five or six passages that, you know, seem to prohibit same-sex sexual relationships, and they begin the conversation there. Leviticus 18, 22, or Romans 1, 26, 27, 1 Corinthians 6, 9, you know, they go to these prohibition passages, and they think that's kind of the primary place where the theological discussion needs to be made. I think that's beginning on the wrong foot. The question is not, can two people the same sex get married? The main question is, what is marriage? What is the thing we're even ultimately debating? Because there's different definitions of marriage that people are bringing with them

into the conversation. So before we even debate whether Leviticus 18.22 is for today or whether it's talking about oppressive, abusive, same-sex relationships or whether it's covering all kinds of sexual relationships, that's an important conversation to have down the road. We need to first wrestle with what is marriage, specifically is sex difference an intrinsic part of what marriage is. And I spend several pages here going into various relevant passages of scripture that I think teach that yes, sex difference is part of what marriage is. I mean, there's several passages to go to. The two that I typically go to first, because it's fairly, I think, relatively easy to point out where I'm getting this from, is Genesis 2.23-24 and Matthew 19, specifically verses 3-5, where Jesus quotes

Genesis 2.24 and he kind of splices it together with Genesis 1.27. Do I want to get into all this? Oh, I do talk about the Hebrew word kenegdo. It's often translated suitable partner, where Eve is described as a kenegdo, a suitable partner for Adam in Genesis 2.18 and 2.20. And then I get into Genesis 2.23 that talks about Eve's similarity to Adam, that she's bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, that she's a common human. She's not an animal. But then also the difference that Eve brings to the table that she is, and I argue that it's her sex difference that is being highlighted at the end of Genesis 2.23. And that both her equality and sex difference is necessary for the one flesh union that is mentioned in Genesis 2.24. And then I go to Matthew 19 to show that Jesus quotes Genesis 2.24, talks about the one flesh

union. But then he splices that verse together with Genesis 1.27, which says God created the male and female. Those are categories of biological sex, sex difference. And he sort of bakes sex difference into the meaning of the one flesh union that he cites in Genesis 2.24. And I could hear some of your pushbacks. And there's some really good pushbacks to everything I'm saying here. And I address those in a few different conversations down the road. So some of you are ripping your hair out saying, yeah, but what about this? What about that? And didn't James Brown refute that? And I address several counter arguments to everything I'm saying there throughout the book. But in the second chapter,

all I'm trying to do is just lay out, okay, just aside from the arguments, we'll get to all those, what is the viewpoint I'm trying to lay out? Okay, so number one, sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is. Number two, same-sex sexual relationships are always prohibited in the Bible. I cite five passages where this is the case, Leviticus 18.22, Leviticus 20.13, Romans 1.26-27, 1 Corinthians 6.9, and 1 Timothy 1.9-10. And in each case, same-sex sexual relationships are mentioned, and in each case, they are on some level prohibited, discouraged, condemned, whatever language you want to use. Now, several caveats here. First of all, all of these passages are in a context that condemns all kinds of other sins,

many of which are committed by straight Christians, many of which were committed by many of you and many of me before lunch today. Okay. It's almost lunchtime. So we cannot come to these passages and say, these are the don't have gay sex passages. No, no. These are the don't sin passages. And by the way, y'all are doing these. This is why y'all need Jesus. Okay. To get my Arkansas accent on. So yeah. So we can't, we can't, we need to make sure we come at these passages and read the entire context, which should produce a good level of humility. Okay. And also all of these passages, the interpretation of these passages, the interpretation and application of these passages is highly disputed.

Okay. So I'm simply making an observation right now. Okay. So remember Bible interpretation class, you have observation, interpretation, application, kind of three stages of reading the Bible. All I'm doing is I'm lingering on observation right now. These passages do mention same-sex sexual relationships, and they're all mentioned negatively, either prohibited or discouraged. Nobody debates that. There is a debate about whether these still apply to today, whether they apply to all kinds of same sex relationships, including consensual committed relationships, or whether they're only referring

to abusive kind of same sex relationships. And again, these are arguments that I address later on. I don't do that here in the second chapter. My third reason for holding to the historically Christian view, this isn't a standalone argument. It's more of a response to the pushback that my first two points are simply me as a heterosexual married man reading into the Bible what I want to see. Well, Preston, you have your blinders on. Preston, this is just your interpretation. These are good. Okay, so here we go. Drawing on some of the things we learned in the first chapter. You know what? That's a good argument. Maybe I am.

We all should ask ourselves that question. Am I just as an individual reading into the Bible what I want to see? What's the best way to cross-check ourselves and making sure we don't have just an individual reading of the text? Well, we should go global. We should consult people of different geographical regions, different ethnicities, different denominations. So that leads to our third argument here, which is really, again, not a standalone argument, but kind of a response to maybe push back to the

first two arguments. Number three, the multi-ethnic global church affirms the historically Christian view. Now I'm not saying every single individual outside of the West affirms the historically Christian view. Now, I'm not saying every single individual outside of the West affirms the global Christian view, but the overwhelming majority of churches, denominations, church leaders for the last 2,000 years. When you go global, go multi-ethnic, look at places in the global South where Christianity is flourishing, Asia, Latin America, Africa,

this is not much of a debate. And again, I'm not affirming everything, every single outside the America context, you know, church believes is accurate because it's outside of America. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying when it comes to some of the basic questions around is sex difference part of what marriage is, does God bless any kind of same-sex sexual relationships? Here's the passages that we're wrestling with. How does the global multi-ethnic church read these passages? When you go outside the West, you have an overwhelming agreement. Again, not that there's not some exceptions to that, but overwhelming agreement. Over the last 2000 years, what I said about Genesis 2 and Matthew 19 and Romans 1, that yeah, this is how Christians have read these passages.

So all that to say, I actually don't, I kind of, yeah, I don't think it's the best argument to say, well, Preston, this is just your individual interpretation. Actually, it's not. I mean, that's why I call it the historically Christian view of marriage. And I might come back to why I call it that in a second. I know some people push back on my use of that phrase. Number four, this is so important. And this actually becomes foundational for several points I make later on in the book as I'm responding to affirming arguments. Number four, marriage and sex are not essential for human flourishing. are not essential for human flourishing. Now, what I mean by that is they're not essential for

every individual human to flourish. As individuals, not every individual needs to get married and have sex to flourish as a human being. Obviously, marriage and sex are kind of important for the, as you know, in general, for humanity to reproduce and reproduce and continue to reproduce and so on and so forth. But not every individual needs to get married and have sex to be, let me use a modern term, to be happy, to feel fulfilled, to have a meaningful life. Christianity, as I point out, has a rich tradition of elevating singleness. In fact, in the early church, sometimes marriage is almost discouraged or seen as the lesser kind of vocation. And this comes from 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul toys on that perspective. He says, it's not wrong to be married, but the single, if you really want to live it up, the single life is where it's at. I'm paraphrasing Paul there.

So, yeah, the early church took that seriously. So for many centuries, Christianity had a rich tradition of marriage serving a purpose, but singleness being a very high and meaningful calling. Unfortunately, in more recent years, especially in the West, well, no, this isn't limited to the West. It's pretty much all over the place. But I do think that there is a much lower view of my cards out, I think this is a problem in the conservative evangelical church immersed in purity culture or coming out of purity culture, where I do think marriage and sex were kind of baked into the expected journey for the Christian,

that if you're a Christian and you do your devotions and you don't go past first base with your boyfriend, girlfriend, then God will bless you with a spouse, you know, sexual fulfillment. If you just wait until marriage, just wait, just grin and bear it, get through the single period, and then boom,

God's going to bless you with a spouse. Everything's going to work out until it doesn't. And there's just nothing in the New Testament that promises sex and marriage to faithful followers of Jesus. It's just not there. So, yeah, this has been kind of the idolizing of marriage and sex. It's kind of been a problem in the more conservative branches of the church. But I would say I see the kind of same thing being replicated in more progressive branches of the church or just in society as a

whole, saying if you're not having sex with the person you are wired to have sex with, the person you desire, the person who resonates with your sexual orientation, then you just can't be happy. It can't be fulfilled in life. And sometimes that's brought into some, I would say, affirming arguments. It seems to kind of assume almost like a neo-purity culture view of sex and marriage. And so I want to lay this out at the beginning to say, I don't think marriage and sex are essential for every individual to flourish as a human being. So if an argument is kind of assuming that to be true, that marriage and sex is essential, then I want to address that in the midst of the argument. Lastly, marriage has a purpose. Marriage has a purpose. And this has been highly, well, that marriage

has a purpose has not been disputed throughout church history. Which purpose or purposes they are, that's been disputed. Okay. And I do wrestle with that. I wrestle with kind of different viewpoints on what is marriage? What is marriage for? How does marriage interact with the storyline of scripture? And is sex difference a necessary part of how marriage interacts with the storyline of scripture? These are the kind of the deeper theological questions that I want to wrestle with early on. And man, this could take a whole book. It has taken a whole book to explore. Lots of books written on the purpose of marriage. So I summarize in a few pages here. But I talk about three things that I think scripture does talk about in terms of the purposes of marriage.

Symbolism, procreation, and companionship. And these have gone through, there's been different names given to similar categories here. And these have gone through, there's been different names given to similar categories here. And I really went, this section of the chapter went through several drafts because I was like, how do I best summarize what's been a very kind of complex conversation in church history? So, yeah, that was, it wasn't easy to do. But symbolism. Throughout scripture, human marriage is a symbol for God's marriage to us. Yahweh to Israel in the Old Testament, Jesus in the church in the New Testament. Obviously, Ephesians 5 is a huge passage where Paul talks about human marriage, but then says, you know, I'm not even

talking about marriage. I'm talking about Christ in the church. I think Catholics and Orthodox thinkers have done a really good job exploring, or at least they've spent a lot more theological energy exploring this category. So I don't claim to have it all worked out. But clearly in Scripture, human marriage is interacting with and symbolizing God's love for his people on some level. Again, the main question is, within this theme, is sex difference necessary for that illustration to work or not? And that's debated, obviously. I do argue briefly that I do think sex difference is an essential part of that symbolism. And I do maybe address some pushbacks to that later on in the book. But I just kind of want to open up people's categories that these are the kind of things we should be thinking through.

How does marriage symbolize God's love for the church and his sex difference in terms of the human marriage, an essential part of that symbolism? Number two, procreation, pretty self-explanatory, although one of the more complicated purposes. I do think procreation is a purpose of marriage. In fact, much of what makes males and females different has to do with the respective roles they play in conceiving and reproducing and rearing children. And again, here I'm drawing on, I do lean a little more Catholic in this question of the role that procreation plays in marriage. Now, there's many of you, conservative and not conservative, are saying, what about this? What about that?

What about this? What about that? What about infertility? What about chosen childlessness? What about marriage and old age? What about health reasons why the wife might not want to have children and so on and so forth? So I do briefly address kind of all, if not most, if not all of the pushbacks you might have. But to be clear, so here's kind of how I concluded.

The historically Christian view of marriage, historically Christian marriage will embody and be open to procreation as it tells God's story of his life-giving creative power. This doesn't mean that every marriage will result in raising kids. What it does mean is that true marriages will reflect God's designated context and design in which kids should be raised. That's a statement jam-packed full of some stuff, which if and when you read the book, I'll let you kind of interact with the longer discussion I have in chapter two of the book. The third purpose of marriage is companionship. The classic text for this is the Song of Songs, which hardly at all mentions procreation, but does talk about a man and woman enjoying each other, both sexually and intimately and

relationally. And there's a few other passages we should bring in here that talk about companionship. I do think it's important to point out, though, that marriage is not the only, or even I would argue, and I do argue, it's not even the primary ways in which humans can and should find companionship. So it is true that marriage does provide a context for companionship. I would say it's theologically untrue to say marriage is the primary or main or only way in which humans can and should find companionship. And I do justify that to some extent in the book. So yeah, as we wrestle with the purpose of marriage already, and again, this is going to open up more questions than answers, but I would say the first two purposes

of marriage, symbolism and procreation, do necessitate sex difference. Obviously, companionship by itself would not necessitate sex difference. Two people of the same sex can have companionship. I would at least suggest early on, and again, I'm trying not to get into argument stage at this point, but just to kind of open up some categories. I think someone can find companionship without being married, even though married people do also find companionship in marriage. So the point is at the end of this section, any compelling Christian theology of marriage should be able to offer biblically faithful responses to the questions, what is marriage? What is marriage for? Is it simply for companionship? Is it not

for procreation? Is that an old school view? Is that something that's post-Jesus is no longer necessary? And so on and so forth. What is marriage? What is marriage for, and how does sex difference factor into your theological response to those essential questions. So these are the categories I wrestle with in that second section. And yeah, that's what I do early on. And then the next, the rest of the book, probably, you know, the first few chapters are longer than the rest of the chapters. It probably occupies maybe 20% of the book as a whole. But then I get into 21 conversations that represent different arguments against the historically Christian view of marriage. Like, is sex difference described or prescribed in Scripture? Wasn't Paul not even talking about consensual same-sex relationships in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6?

What about the fact that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality? Or what about Paul? He said it's better to marry than to burn. Doesn't this mean that gay people who are not cut out for celibacy should marry the person they desire? Or what about the fact that some people are born gay? Doesn't this mean it's okay to be married to the same sex? Isn't love love? Or what about the trajectory of women,

slaves and same sex relationships? We see, you know, things said about women and slavery that kind of progress. They kind of grow and blossom and change throughout the, the biblical narrative. Isn't the same true of same sex, sex relationships and many,

many others. I will pick five. Actually, my patron supporters have voted on which five of the 21 they want me to address in the next episode that will release in a couple of days. So please look forward to that. All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I hope you're not too angry, but if you are, that's great. Come back next time and hopefully I'll wrestle with at least some other questions you have. Thanks for listening to Theology Unwrong. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.